Metrics

The Washington Post is reporting a body count for the surge and the futility of either US metrics or US intelligence or US screening counts:

U.S. patrols and raids have also uncovered nearly 2,500 weapons caches and killed or captured more than 20,000 insurgents, militia members and other fighters nationwide since January. Among the enemy killed or captured are more than 1,700 individual targets considered "high value," in what military officials and analysts say is an effort to eliminate leaders of enemy cells in hopes they cannot quickly be replaced.

"Maybe this is the bloody period when we are doing the heavy fighting to get at the bad actors so we can have a more peaceful future," said Michael O'Hanlon, a military analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

According to Mr. O'Hanlon's primary project, the Iraq Index,(p.25 for March 2007) , the total Sunni Arab insurgency had only 70,000 active members in it. The Shi'ite groups (JAM and SIIC most notably) might have another 100,000 or so so 10% incapacitation (capture/killed) rates should seriously eat into the institutional ability of the insurgencies. Yet in the same WaPo article, the sophistication of attacks is going up...

Wonder who is wrong here...